Nerd Nite London

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Details: Wednesday 17^th May.

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50. Tickets available here

Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

This month we’ll be celebrating our 4^th birthday with our favourite things: facts and beer. We’ll be learning if maths can help you fall in love? Why do they teach maths in school, and how did they decide to teach it as they do? And is Asgard bacteria the ‘missing link’ between microbes and our ancestors? Be there and be square.

1+1 always equals 2. So why does maths education keep changing?

School maths, love it or hate, you had to do it! Maths is a core subject in UK schools that every student has to study until they are 16 years old. But who decided this and why? How did maths become such an important subject? Was it always this important? This talk will look at the history of maths education and the many changes that have led to its high standing in the English education system. The talk will also discuss what the future looks like for maths education in England

Susan-Louise Okereke has been teaching maths for over 11 years. In that time she had taught a wide variety of people, from primary children to NEET (Not in employment, education or training) young people to pensioners. She currently teaches maths in a south London inner city secondary academy, while also working with organisation like the Museum of London to design contextual maths resources that aim to bring maths to life.

The mathematics of love: a combination of the sensual and the statistical

Want to save yourself from the pain of one-sided love? Maybe a mathematical model can help? Worried that your love isn’t going to last? There’s another mathematical model with a 90% success rate for predicting divorces, based simply on a 15 minute video of the couple. This talk combines the sensual and the statistical, the arousing and the analytical, the titillating and the trigonometric, the X-rated and the exact. Learn to look at love from a mathematician’s point of view.

Tim Bush became interested in the mathematical modelling of romantic love while studying for his PhD in Physics at the University of Edinburgh. He has also worked on mathematical models of bacteria, honeybees, geology and astrobiology, and now works as a Data Scientist in London. Previously, he worked on mathematical models of lakes at the University of Amsterdam. In his free time he enjoys board games, video games and boxing

Asgard bacteria of Loki’s castle

The origin of advanced life such as plants and animals has long been as mysterious as the origin of life itself: how could invisibly small microbes evolve to become as complex as trees, humans, cats, or dogs? Recent discoveries in “Loki’s Castle”, a network of hydrothermal vents a mile deep in the North Atlantic have revealed a startling clue: the vents were inhabited by a family of unusual microbes that suggest a “missing link” between microbes and complex life. In this talk I’ll describe the fascinating story behind our developing understanding of where we came from, and how

Dr. Morgan Beeby leads a research lab at Imperial College, London, focusing on the evolution of the wide diversity found in the biology of bacteria. Prior to Imperial College he studied at Caltech, UCLA, and the University of Birmingham.

All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon or visiting www.london.nerdnite.com. For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

 

 

Nerd Nite London- April 19th

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Details: Wednesday 19^th April.

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50. Tickets available here

Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

What makes us so different from monkeys? Why should pandas get all the praise? Is the Tour de France getting easier?  Join us to answer these, and other not really so important questions as we present another excellent night of learning and drinking.  Be there and be square.

Why should pandas get all the praise?

Why should the panda get all the praise? The Ugly Animal Preservation Society is dedicated to raising the profile of the world’s most aesthetically challenged endangered species.   Join biologist and presenter Simon Watt as we explore the incredible biology of the animal kingdom’s most monstrous.

Simon Watt is Head of The Ugly Animal Preservation Society, host of the podcast LevelUpHuman and co-presenter of Inside Nature’s Giants

 Monkeys to Man –  How Human is Human?

Whilst the classic line up of chimp to man is widely used to illustrate evolutionary theory, at what point along that queue of primates did we become people? How are we really any different to other large primates in our family tree? What is it exactly that makes us human, and is it necessarily something we should be happy about?

Els Merry Price has degrees in archaeology, anthropology and human evolution & behaviour. Having spent almost a decade at university she’s slightly concerned that she now finds people more bewildering than ever, and can only hope that people remain distracted enough by her hair and tattoos not to notice this fact

Sport: what the eye can’t see

It’s easy to be fooled in sport by prevailing wisdom and predictable punditry. But what happens when we use data to test out a few theories? Here are three sporting questions with surprising answers. Do basketball teams lose on purpose? Is the Tour de France getting easier? And what happens in tennis when the loser wins more points than the winner?

Rob Minto is a journalist and the author of Sports Geek: a visual tour of sporting myths, debate and data. He was most recently at the Financial Times for 12 years, editing and writing about markets, technology and other stuff. This is his second Nerd Nite talk.

 All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter or liking us on Facebook or visiting www.london.nerdnite.com. For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.  

Address: V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Details: Wednesday 15th march.

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50.   Tickets available here

Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

Join us for a line up to fulfil every nerd’s dreams: engineering, artificial intelligence, and zombies. What engineering secrets are hidden inside our houses? What can chess teach us about AI? Why are zombies so hangry? Be there and be square- Wednesday March 15^th.

Revenge of The Mechanical Turk: How computers simultaneously killed and saved Chess – and what it means for the rest of us

Chess at the highest level has almost become a memory competition – who can better recall the moves their computer recommended tends to win. However, accurately computing positions dozens of moves deep has revealed hidden beauty, and more possibilities lying in the 64 squares than we thought possible. So, how do humans still take on our silicon counterparts?

This talk will explore the links between human and artificial intelligence through the wonder of Chess. Exploring whether education needs to be reshaped in the face of AI and deep machine learning, if intuition and idea generation are more valuable than being able to recall facts in the online age.

Henry C. Blanchard is an undefeated ChessBoxer, philosophy/physics grad, start up mentor and all round amateur geek.

Brain Food: dishing on zombie neuroscience

Mary applies neuroscience to help explain some classic zombie behaviours such as undying hunger, out of control rage, and their less than graceful movements. After this talk you will definitely be in the mood for more… dare we say it… brains.

During her ten years as a San Jose State University biology lecturer, Mary Poffenroth has made innovation in science education and communication a priority. Whether through video, popular writing, or live science events, her goals are always the same: make science accessible for all. She has created videos with TEDed and Wiley & Sons, hosted live shows with Nerd Nite Silicon Valley, written for Science Magazine, and Cognella published her first solo title, “Write, Present, Create: Science Communication for Undergraduates” in 2015. Leveraging her specialty in large lectures, she created an outdoor environmental student volunteer program, which has donated over 15,000 work hours to local non-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and is still going strong, now in its ninth year.

Don’t Judge a Building by Its Facade: Why infrastructure is cool

Infrastructure is all around you! (But not in a creepy way.) It works 24/7, 365 days a year to keep people around the world moving, toilets flushing and light switches turned on. Let’s explore some of the amazing ways engineers achieve this and how they are planning for the future.

Kate Ward is a Senior Transport Planner at WSP. This means she works on all the aspects of infrastructure projects before they go to construction: planning, building traffic models, design review and project management. In her own time she is obsessed with transportation and has been known to take time out on vacations to go look at train stations. Nevertheless she can’t explain why your tube was delayed this morning or when Southern will get their act together.

All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, liking us on Facebook  or visiting our website. For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Details: Wednesday 18^th January.

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50. Tickets available here

Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

Looking for a reason to ditch dry January early?  Here’s your chance with Nerd Nite’s return to the drinking and thinking scene.  We’ll be teaching you how to be creative, exploring the intersection of dance and digital technology, and learning the theories and methodologies of studying the paranormal.

How to be creative

Artist Marc Smith takes a look at different theories that explain how we can encourage people to be creative.  He’ll describe some of the triggers to creativity he’s used personally and as an art teacher, alongside theories of how to promote creative thinking in organisations and society as a whole.

Marc Smith is an Art Teacher & Artist who has spent almost 20 years teaching Art in London, Hong Kong and Beijing as well as running art history workshops for European Art tours.  Marc’s own artwork explores play and automatic drawing.

Weird Science: A (Very Brief) Introduction to Anomalistic Psychology

Ever since records began, people across the world have reported unusual experiences which we would today label as “paranormal”. Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims; or else belief in and experience of ostensibly paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of psychological factors. This presentation will provide an introduction to the sub-discipline of anomalistic psychology, which may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, in an attempt to provide non-paranormal explanations in terms of known psychological and physical factors. This approach will be illustrated with examples relating to a range of ostensibly paranormal phenomena.

Chris French is a regular nerd nite speaker, previously explaining to us the science behind Satanic messages in death metal records, ghost sightings, and séances. Chris is a professor of psychology and head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Dance and Digital Technology

What happens when you bring thermal cameras, 3D printing, and interactive LED technology to the world of dance? From 2015-16, Leila was the inaugural digital artist in residence at the UK’s leading contemporary dance company, Rambert. While there she interviewed, worked and played with some of the world’s best dancers. In this presentation Leila will talk about her experience during the residency, and the current imbalance in the dance-digital relationship. Is it already too late to change the way dance and technology interact?

Leila Johnston is a technology artist, journalist and comedy writer who has authored three humour books, contributed to the magazines including WIRED UK, Creative Review and the New Scientist, and completed a number of residencies. From 2013-2016 she ran Hack Circus, a creative collective producing a magazine and immersive live show exploring speculative and important ideas across the arts and sciences.

All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon or visiting www.london.nerdnite.com. For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Date: Wednesday 19th October.

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50. Tickets available here

Time: Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

This month’s Nerd Nite’s speakers will show you that everything you think you know about London is wrong, prove that knitting is good for your emotional wellbeing, and explain what happens to language when people from 40 different cultures on an island the size of the Isle of Wight are asked to pick a language they would all like to speak and trade in. Featuring guest host Dan Walker-Smith, and an introductory presentation from Nerd Nite Miami boss, Melissa Blundell Osario

It all sounds like double Dutch to me.

What happens to language when people from 40 different cultures on an island the size of the Isle of Wight are asked to pick a language they would all like to speak and trade in? That’s what happened in Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean.  This presentation will chart the history of Curacao and the evolution of the language of Papiamentu.

Sarina was born on the island of Curacao, formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, still part of the Dutch Kingdom) and is fascinated by languages because she grew up speaking such an absurd one.  She works as a designer for an exhibition agency in London and can be caught checking out architecture and eavesdropping on your conversations on the tube

Everything You Know About London Is Wrong

Do you think the Queen is at home when the Union Flag is over Buckingham Palace? You probably don’t, because you’re clever, and you know that it should be the Royal Standard. But you might be surprised by some of the other popular misconceptions about London. That statue of Eros isn’t actually Eros. The tower everyone calls Big Ben was never officially called St Stephen’s Tower either. It isn’t illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. Having a London postcode does not mean you live in London. And Jimi Hendrix was definitively not responsible for the flocks of parrots that now bedevil the capital. While we’re at it, it’s quite possible that London doesn’t exist at all. Find out why in this entertaining talk by Londonist Editor-at-Large Matt Brown, whose new book ‘Everything You Know About London Is Wrong’ turns a skeptical eye on the capital.

Knitting to Ninety- how knitting needles help you live longer

Nana knows what’s up. Knitting and crochet can be good for your mental – and physical – health. I’ll run through the science on why knitting a sweater can help you live a longer, happier life (and also keep you warm).

Rachel Rayner is a crocheter and a knitter, not a doctor or a scientist. During the day, she works in an office, and during the evening, she plays with yarn and writes about it on www.amiguru.me.

This month’s Nerd Nite will be presented by Dan Walker-Smith, and feature an introductory presentation by Nerd Nite Miami’s boss, Melissa Blundell Osario

All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, or liking us on Facebook . For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

 

 

…with guest host James Ward

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: Nerd Nite, Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Date: Wednesday September 21st.

Time: Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50.

Tickets available here

This month’s Nerd Nite’s speakers will show you what fictional realities can teach us about war and linguistics, and we ask what makes us man not monkey. This month’s learning and drinking will be hosted by James Ward, one of Nerd Nite London’s favourite speakers and the founder of the Boring Conference.

From Kesh to Klingon: How languages are created for books and films

Aliens always used to speak English, which made understanding them very easy. Some writers, however, thought that this was a decidedly unlikely state of affairs and made up new languages for them to speak. We’ll look at how some of these conlangs were based on believable rules of evolutionary linguistics while others were, frankly, utter gibberish.

Matt has an unhealthy obsession with languages, the more useless the better. He’s currently working on the machine translation of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. He’s also rather fond of incredibly strong cheese.

Monkeys to Man – How Human is Human?

Whilst the classic line up of chimp to man is widely used to illustrate evolutionary theory, at what point along that queue of primates did we become people? How are we really any different to other large primates in our family tree? What is it exactly that makes us human, and is it necessarily something we should be happy about?

Els has degrees in archaeology, anthropology & human evolution and behaviour. Having spent almost a decade in education she’s slightly concerned that she now finds people more bewildering than ever, and can only hope that people remain distracted enough by her hair and tattoos to not realise this.

What can science fiction teach us about the realities of global politics?

If you’ve watched Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, and Game of Thrones, you are already a scholar of global politics and international relations. Did you know that Cersei from GoT is essentially theories of Realism wrapped into one character? Or that Adama from BsG systematically exercises Constructivist ideals when interacting with the Cylons? This talk will highlight how the expertise you’ve gained from binging on boxsets translate to theories that can be used to analyse wars and foreign policy… and that you are maybe more qualified for office than most current politicians.

Tracy is a fellow in health economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She studies the politics and economics of global health and focuses on ameliorating problems in health systems. After years of schooling and teaching she realized that sometimes it is more effective to learn from sci-fi than your traditional books and articles.

This month’s host, James Ward is the author of Adventures In Stationery: A Journey Through Your Pencil Case and the founder of the Boring Conference, a one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked. He previously spoke at Nerd Nite on our favourite traffic icon, Ampfelman.

All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, or liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk

Nerd Nite goes to the festival- July 22^nd, Secret Garden Party

 

When: Friday July 22^nd, 5-7

Where: The Forum

 

Heading to Secret Garden Party next weekend?  So are we!  We’ve selected the best of our speakers to help you pack your chat with some space-bending facts to blow your friends’ minds as the sun comes up.  Sam Furniss from Punk Science will guide us up into space, Julia Shaw will describe the technologies of the future that will help us modify memories, and Dan Walker-Smith will be providing a Garden Party guide to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Come, drink and learn as you get ready for a weekend of festival fun.

Quantum Mechanics, 1950s video projectors and giving cash away in rural Nepal

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers deliver a 21 minute talk about, well, pretty much anything, while the audience drinks along. It’s evidence-based entertainment in a bar.

At April’s Nerd Nite there’s Quantum Mechanics; find out how particles can be two places at once, totally nerd out learning about 1950s video projection technology and discover why giving money away led to intrigue and deception in rural Nepal.

Address: Nerd Nite, Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Date: Wednesday April 20th 2016

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50.  Tickets available here

Doors (and bar) open 6.30pm Event starts 7.30pm

Quantum Superpositions: Parallel universes and Revolutionary Computing

The world is quantum mechanical but the world as described by quantum mechanics is very different from the world we’re familiar with. You’ll have your mind bent all out of shape with this talk finding out about ‘Superpositions’. Find out what Superpositions are and how these lead to particles that seem to be in two places at once and cats that are neither dead or alive. You’ll also learn how superpositions could revolutionise computing.

Ben, Zoe and Chris are postgraduate students at Imperial College London. Like all budding scientists, they are addicted to coffee, free food and arguing about the nature of reality.

1950’s video projection technology : hot oil, high voltages and vacuum pumps

Mike Harrison is fascinated with how things work and has an entertainingly ranty YouTube channel where he takes apart things (e.g. airport X-ray machines) or explains why it’s a really bad idea to explore a hydrogen cell.

Mike will explain about the Eidophor. From the 1950s-90s, a single company dominated the large-screen video projection market with a barely practical device called the Eidophor. This used highly complex optics, involving high voltages, hot oil and vacuum pumps to project bright, high quality images for live music, sports and news events. It monopolised the market until the 1990s when it was made completely obsolete by modern projection technologies.

Mike Harrison likes vintage technology, dangerous high voltage experiments and other random electronics.

The challenges of implementing cash transfer schemes to pregnant women in rural Nepal

More than 10,000 pregnant women in rural Nepal were given cash and researchers wanted to evaluate if this improved mother and child health. In order to understand whether women could actually keep control of money at home, Lu interviewed wives, husbands, sisters-in-law and mothers-in-law. The results paint a fascinating picture of intrigue, deception and power struggles in poor Nepali households.

Lu is a PhD student at the Institute of Global Health, University College London. He is currently writing up his thesis in his final year in Nepal and desperately hoping someone will give him a job when he finishes.

About Us

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers deliver a 21 minute talk about, well, pretty much anything, while the audience drinks along. It’s evidence-based entertainment in a bar.

Previous talks have included ‘The technology of terminator’ delivered by Leila Johnston, ‘What it’s like to be a freedom fighter’ presented by woman of the year Diana Nammi, and ‘How to avoid a hangover’ explained by Wellcome science book prize winner Dr Richard Stephens (unfortunately the answer was to drink less).

@nerdnitelondon

Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.

Address: Nerd Nite, Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Details: Wednesday March 16th

Tickets: Early nerd tickets £6, general admission £7.50. Tickets available here.

Doors open 6.30pm

As part of British Science Week, this month we’re sciencing the shit out of nerd nite. You’ll learn how your brain is able to tell you where you are (and how to get to the pub), what happens when you go fossil hunting in the Yemen, and why evolution is more awesome than you could possibly imagine.

How your brain knows where you are and what happens when it goes a bit wrong

Although you might think you have a terrible memory or sense of direction the truth is that even the most inept of us rarely get lost. We’re very good at keeping track of where we are relative to our surroundings: we recognise familiar places, can take shortcuts, and deal with unexpected obstacles. In fact so seamless is this ability that it seems trivial – after all when was the last time you got lost on the way to your own toilet or finding your way to work? This presentation will cover how the brain pulls off this trick. We’ll look at how memories for places and events are stored in the brain, what goes wrong when they get messed up, and most importantly how you can find your way to the pub (really).

Dr. Caswell Barry hails from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. He studies rats’ brains for a living, using this knowledge to pick apart the human mind and develop an understanding of what makes us tick.

No need for a creator: how the inherent creativity of the universe invokes awe and explains life on earth.

Around four billion years ago, somewhere on earth, a set of chemicals began to build patterns that recreated themselves. These simple patterns were the progenitors of life on earth, spreading across the planet and building layer upon layer of complexity into life on earth today. This presentation will include reasons to believe that such pattern building is an intrinsic property of our universe, and how from this perspective the spontaneous emergence of life might not just be possible, but inevitable. Using examples from personal research we’ll understand how awe-inspiring evolved living systems can become, and how resorting to a ‘creator myth’ can actually diminish our sense of awe in the universe.

Dr. Morgan Beeby leads a research lab at Imperial College, London, focusing on the evolution of the wide diversity found in the biology of bacteria. Prior to Imperial College he studied at Caltech, UCLA, and the University of Birmingham.

Archaeologists Without Borders: Fossil Hunting in the Yemen

Some parts of the world’s potential contribution to science and exploration is written-off due to instability, this is a story of how we need to fight for incredibly good science no matter where it takes us, this is the story of fossil hunting in the Yemen.

National Geographic Emerging Explorer Ella Al-Shamahi is a palaeoanthropologist specialising in Neanderthals and in fossil hunting in caves in unstable, hostile and disputed territories— she also just happens to be a stand-up comic.

All proceeds from Nerd Nite go to charity. This month’s charity is the Running Charity. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon or liking us on Facebook